Todd Goes for the Goal

* Reviews *

Short chapters, sports, mostly for boys—that pretty much sums up the A Champion Sports Story series. In this book, freshman Todd Benson has just been tapped for his high schools varsity soccer team, where his best friend Will, a junior, is the outstanding goalkeeper. After his initial excitement, Todd discovers that the teams two scoring stars are semi-literate bullies who are not above cheating in a game by faking penalties. The sarcastic coach encourages these tactics and pushes Todd to conform. As he wrestles with his conscience and begins to score on the team, Todd learns that his family will soon be moving to Ross Corners, a nearby town with the worst record in the league. It seems like a disaster, but when the new season begins, Todd realizes that with a bright new coach and an experienced player from Brazil, Ross Corners just might turn around and even beat his former team. Todd now faces a number of dilemmas—he will need not only to prove himself as a player, but also to score against Will, who counts on a soccer scholarship to make college possible. Leaving his girlfriend Melanie is painful, too, since both the bullies are vying for her attention. How Todd, Melanie, and Will sort out their problems and the bullies get their just desserts make up the rest of the tale. Though the plot has its share of good and evil characters, none is completely convincing, Readers may assume the action takes place somewhere in the U.S., but where? Avid soccer fans, however, can enjoy the excitement of the final game; a brief epilogue seems anti-climactic., Children's Literature